$UFKLWHFWXUDO Chiu, C-Y 2016 China Receives Utzon: The Role of Jørn Utzon’s 1958 Study

Trip to China in His Architectural Maturity. Architectural Histories, 4(1): 12,

+LVWRULHV pp. 1–25, DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5334/ah.182

RESEARCH ARTICLE

China Receives Utzon: The Role of Jørn Utzon’s 1958

Study Trip to China in His Architectural Maturity
Chen-Yu Chiu

Both before and after his study trip to China in 1958, Danish architect Jørn Utzon (1918–2008) ­consistently
cited dynastic Chinese architecture as one of his essential design ideals. This article commences with a
reconstruction, using archival and anecdotal evidence, of Jørn Utzon’s 1958 study trip to China with his
close friend, the noted Norwegian architect Geir Grung (1926–89). The investigation seeks to explain
both why, as a student, Utzon was so interested in the civilisation of China and how his carefully planned
journey yielded Utzon both an intuitive grasp of ideas of Chinese architecture, and, most importantly, a
continuing interest in China’s traditional systems of building construction. The answers could add to a
methodological and theoretical framework for understanding Utzon’s work.

Introduction This article then establishes built-form analogies

Both before and after his study trip to China in 1958, the
Danish architect Jørn Utzon (1918–2008) consistently
cited dynastic Chinese architecture as one of his essential
design ideas and ideals (Faber and Utzon, 1947; Utzon
1962; 1970). However, Utzon never clarified the precise
role of Chinese building traditions in his work. Utzon did
not publish any substantial material of this pivotal study
trip: all we have is his fleeting remark that ‘[…] the trip to
China is much more than expected.’1 How did Utzon per-
ceive Chinese architecture during this important journey?
What was China’s precise role in Utzon’s maturity as an
architectural master? These questions have not yet been
discussed.2
This article commences with a reconstruction, using
archival and anecdotal evidence, of Utzon’s trip to China,
which he made with his close friend, the noted Norwegian
architect Geir Grung (1926–89). The Utzon Archives
at Aalborg was a major source, as was the collection of
Jan Utzon in Saunte, Denmark, and interviews with Jørn
Utzon’s family and close friends, including architect and
architectural historian Tobias Faber (1915–2010) and
Else Glahn (1921–2011), and Grung’s second wife, Dagny
Kjøde. Surviving archival materials including a detailed
travel itinerary and information collected through inter-
views encourage an examination of Utzon’s early per-
ceptions of China, both before and during this pivotal
adventure.3 The analysis seeks to explain why, as a stu-
dent, Utzon was so interested in the civilisation of China
and how his carefully planned journey yielded Utzon an
intuitive grasp of ideas of Chinese architecture, and, most
importantly, a continuing interest in China’s traditional
systems of building construction.
Department of Architecture, Aalto University, FI
chen-yu.chiu@aalto.fi
between Utzon’s 1958 study of Chinese architecture in situ
and his design proposals over the three decades following
the trip, with a view to retracing the path of Utzon’s grow-
ing understanding of Chinese architecture during this
period. The analysis includes Utzon’s design proposals
for the Sydney Opera House (1958–66), Bagsværd Church
(1968–76), the National Assembly of Kuwait (1972–84),
the architect’s second house on Majorca, Can Feliz (1991–
94), and several important proposals within his ‘Platforms
and Plateaus’ theme: a manifesto with his now famous
sketch of ‘Chinese houses and temples’ (Utzon 1962). This
investigation demonstrates that Utzon’s once-in-a-life-
time voyage to China had a profound and lasting impact
on the aesthetic, architectonic and spatial principles of
his buildings and projects. This article aims to add to the
considered methodological and theoretical framework for
understanding Utzon’s work.
Utzon’s Early Perception of China
The young Utzon’s affinity with China is intimately con-
nected to his socio-cultural background and personal
experiences. Together, these represent an amalgamation
that assimilated diverse aspects of China taken by different
people before and during Utzon’s lifetime. As one would
expect, the path leading to Utzon’s reception of Chinese
art and architecture can be traced back not only to the
intermittent connection between China and the Royal
Danish Academy of Fine Arts in Copenhagen where Utzon
had studied from 1937 to 1942, but also to Utzon’s stay
in Stockholm from 1942 to 1945. Analyzing this connec-
tion reveals the broad context and content of China and
its relationship with the Nordic countries that provided
Utzon the impetus to construct his own understanding of
Chinese building culture through his pivotal trip in 1958.
Utzon’s uncle, Aksel Einar Utzon-Frank (1888–1955),
was a well-known sculptor and professor at the Royal
Art. 12, page 2 of 25
Academy. He played a significant role not only in Utzon’s
architectural career but also in Utzon’s early interest in
China. Originally, before he entered the school of archi-
tecture at the Royal Academy, Jørn Utzon wanted to be
an artist. However, his uncle encouraged him to become
an architect, as architecture was financially ‘safer than
the artist’s vocation’ (Drew 1999: 23–24). Meanwhile,
in his uncle’s studio at the Royal Academy, young
Utzon encountered ‘many kinds of things’ about China.4
Although Utzon-Frank never went to China, he had a
large collection of Imperial Chinese decorated roof tiles,
statues of deities and noble women, ceremonial objects,
paintings and masks (Rindholt 1942). His Chinese collec-
tion included the 1919 edition of the Yingzao fashi5 營造
法式 [State Building Standards] (Fig. 1), which stimulated
Utzon’s early interest in Chinese architecture. This Yingzao
fashi was originally purchased in Shanghai in the early
1920s by Osvald Sirén (1879–1966), an important art his-
torian of traditional Chinese art, architecture, gardens and
paintings, and later sent to Utzon-Frank as a personal gift.
Utzon’s first encounter with the Yingzao fashi was most
probably in Utzon-Frank’s studio before he entered the
Royal Academy. In the late 1930s, Utzon-Frank donated
this book to the library of the Royal Academy, where Utzon
and his two lifetime friends who also studied at the Royal
Academy, Tobias Faber and Else Glahn, looked at it in
great detail.6 This encounter certainly encouraged Utzon’s
acquisition in 1958 of the 1925 edition of Yingzao fashi
in Beijing during his trip to China (Bech 2007).7 Utzon’s
eldest son, Jan Utzon, further explained: ‘My grand-uncle
told my father to search for inspiration from the unknown
Eastern cultures, instead of the West with which we were
more familiar’.8
During Utzon’s study at the Royal Academy, Aage Marcus
(1888–1985) was the director of its library, from 1928 to
1958. In 1941, Marcus published Den Blaa Drage [The
Blue Dragon], a romantic introduction to the mysticism of
Figure 1: Einar Utzon-Frank’s 1919 edition of Yingzao fashi in the Danish National Art Library [Danmarks
Kunstbibliotek] (the original library of the Architecture School at Royal Danish Academy). Photos by the author.
Chiu: China Receives Utzon
Chinese art, religion and philosophy. Marcus s­ ynthesized
much of the previous international China scholarship,
especially that concerning Taoism, Zen Buddhism and
Confucianism. Literally, Drage is an extended chapter of
Lin Yutang’s My Country and My People (1937), one of
Utzon’s most favourite books, which was translated into
Danish in 1938 and undoubtedly inspired Marcus’s writ-
ing (Marcus 1941: 200). Moreover, inspired by Osvald
Sirén’s seminal book of 1917, Rytm och Form [Rhythm and
Form], Marcus also adapted Sirén’s ideas about Chinese
art and artists. With Sirén’s help, Marcus included many
illustrations of Chinese calligraphy and painting in Drage
to support his eclectic occultism.9 Like Marcus’s previous
work, Mystik og Mystikere [Mysticism and Mystics] (1930),
Drage was very popular in the Academy during Utzon’s
time, and he certainly read this book (Weston 2002: 20).10
The Royal Academy students’ interest in China could
have been reinforced by a 1:20 scale model of a Chinese
palace building from the Qing Dynasty (1644–1912) in
the same library (Fig. 2).11 This two-metre-long model was
commissioned in 1933 by Danish missionary architect
Johannes Prip-Møller (1889–1943) and paid for by the
New Carlsberg Foundation (Faber 1994: 53). Through Prip-
Møller’s friendship with the prominent Chinese architec-
tural historian Liang Sicheng (1901–72), this model was
constructed by a Chinese craftsman, Yang Wenchi, and
then painted by Yuan Shihchang, under the supervision
of the Society for Research in Chinese Architecture in
Beijing (1933–35).12 Even though it had a removable roof,
the interior decoration and painting had to be omitted to
reduce the cost.13 The exhibition of this large model and
its related publication written in 1937 by Prip-Møller for
Arkitekten Maanedshæfte provided Utzon with a power-
ful encounter with Chinese building culture (Prip-Møller
1937: 65–68). In the same year, Prip-Møller’s monumen-
tal work was completed with the publication of Chinese
Buddhist Monasteries. In 1944, Antonette Prip-Møller
Chiu: China Receives Utzon
Figure 2: The model of a traditional Chinese palace in the Qing Dynasty style ordered by Johannes Prip-Møller, now in
the National Museum of Denmark. Photo by the author.
(1888–1977) published Kina før og nu [China Before and
Now], a collection of articles by Prip-Møller about Chinese
history, art, architecture and Buddhism, after her hus-
band’s death in 1943. Although Utzon did not know Prip-
Møller, he subsequently acquired Kina før og nu and two
copies of Chinese Buddhist Monasteries in Hong Kong dur-
ing his trip to China.14
At the Royal Academy, Utzon attended lectures by Kay
Fisker (1893–1965) and Steen Eiler Rasmussen (1898–
1990), which often included Chinese architecture as case
studies.15 Kay Fisker was granted a travelling scholarship
in 1922 by the East Asiatic Company (EAC) to travel to
China and Japan, as a guest on one of EAC’s ships. With
his wife, Kay Fisker spent four months in China and two
months in Japan (Faber 1995: 34–35). In 1923, Fisker
published his article ‘Peking’ in Arkitekten with his own
photographs. In the same year, Steen Eiler Rasmussen was
granted the same travelling scholarship to travel to China
for his extraordinary academic performances. During his
five-month stay in China, Rasmussen made numerous
photographs and sketches as he travelled to Hong Kong,
Shanghai, Beijing, Hangzhou and Suzhou. These materi-
als provide a solid ground for Rasmussen’s many writings
related to China in his later career.
Indeed, Utzon read many of these publications by
Rasmussen. Utzon knew of Rasmussen’s trip to China
in 1923 from his lectures and his 1935 book Billedbog
fra en Kinarejse [Pictures from a Journey to China]. Later,
Rasmussen edited it and published it again in 1958 as
Art. 12, page 3 of 25
Rejse i Kina [Travel in China]. In Rasmussen’s London: The
Unique City (first published in Danish in 1934, English in
1937), he described the so-called Chinese ideas and the
role of William Chambers in the emergence of ‘The English
Landscape Garden’ (Rasmussen 1967: 154–65). In Towns
and Buildings: Described in Drawings and Words (first pub-
lished in Danish in 1949, English in 1951), Rasmussen
synthesized his understanding of traditional Chinese
architecture and planning in the case of old Beijing, under
the title ‘The City a Temple’ (Rasmussen 1951: 1–9). In
Experiencing Architecture (first published in Danish in
1957, English in 1959), Rasmussen conceptualized the
monumentality of the Imperial City of old Beijing and the
picturesque setting of the Imperial Gardens (Rasmussen
1964: 136–9, 145–6). In the Danish version of Lin Yutang’s
1962 Imperial Peking: Seven Centuries of China, one of
Utzon’s favourite books, Rasmussen wrote the contradic-
tory introduction on this ‘grey’ city of modern Beijing in
contrast to Lin Yutang’s vibrant Imperial Peking (Lin 1926:
v–viii). Rasmussen’s enthusiastic approach to Chinese
building culture heavily influenced young Utzon’s inter-
est in China, and certainly inspired his trip to China and
visit to Beijing in 1958.
Soon after Utzon’s graduation from the Academy in
1942, two years after Nazi Germany occupied Denmark,
the young students, including Utzon, Tobias Faber and
Else Glahn, left to work in Stockholm, then the centre
of Chinese archaeology in the West. Several Swedish pio-
neers of the field during this period need to be mentioned.
Art. 12, page 4 of 25
Sven Hedin (1865–1952), explorer and cartographer,
travelled through Central Asia in 1893–97, 1899–1902
and 1905–08. Hedin later became one of the founders
of the Swedish Museum of Ethnography, where the first
Japanese tea house, Zui ki tei 瑞輝亭, was inaugurated in
1935.16 Inspired by Hedin’s approaches to China, the geol-
ogist, palaeontologist and archaeologist Johan Gunnar
Andersson (1874–1960) began his pursuit of Chinese
archaeology in the 1920s. Later, an important collec-
tion of objects from prehistoric East Asia, discovered by
Andersson, became the foundation of Östasiatiska Museet
[Swedish Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities], established
in 1926. Andersson was appointed the museum’s first
director. The second director, Bernhard Karlgren (1889–
1978), was a sinologist and philologist who contributed
much to Swedish scholarship on China. Utzon’s lifetime
friend, sinologist Else Glahn, was a follower of Karlgren
at Stockholm University (1949–57). Osvald Sirén pub-
lished many articles and books on China, many of which
Utzon owned. For many years, Sirén was in charge of the
Far Eastern and the Painting and Sculpture Department
of The National Museum in Stockholm, which still today
houses a fine collection of Chinese paintings. Utzon and
Faber visited the above-mentioned three museums, and
in an interview, Faber recalled, ‘Compared with Sweden,
Denmark was more isolated at that time. So, in Stockholm,
Utzon and I discovered China together!’ Faber also said
that soon after the war, Utzon and Faber visited Sirén in
Copenhagen, seeking more knowledge about traditional
Chinese art and architecture.17
Significantly, Sirén’s early publications on Chinese art
and architecture may have provided young Utzon the
most sophisticated survey of Chinese art and architecture
before his 1958 trip to China. During the 1920s and 30s,
Sirén visited China frequently, documenting art with his
camera and also purchasing select works of art. In 1924, he
issued his first monumental volume, The Walls and Gates
of Peking, with a highly preservationist, romantic tone in
the text juxtaposed with large, lavishly printed photo-
graphs and illustrations. Two years later, Sirén published
The Imperial Palaces of Peking (1926) in both English and
French, in a similarly extravagant format. In 1927, Sirén
published the article ‘Tch’angnagn au temps des Souei et
des T’ang [Chang’an City in the Time of the Sui and Tang
Dynasties]’ in Revue des arts asiatiques, as a result of his
study of ancient Chinese city planning. In 1929, Sirén’s A
History of Early Chinese Art was published both in English
and French, one of the first scholarly surveys and a sum-
mary of his earlier academic writing on traditional Chinese
art and architecture. In 1937, Sirén published Billeder fra
Kina [Images of China] in Danish and Swedish, the sober
edition of his early work on Chinese architecture for the
general readers in the North. All these books have the for-
mat of plates with descriptive text and a short historical
narrative. In 1948, confined to Sweden during the Second
World War, Sirén wrote and published his first survey in
Swedish, Kina konst under tre Årtusenden [Chinese Art over
Three Millennia]. Utzon studied all these books and essays
of Sirén, initially while he was working in Stockholm dur-
ing the Second World War.18
Chiu: China Receives Utzon
Preparing for the Trip
Kay Fisker, Steen Eiler Rasmussen and Osvald Sirén’s
travels to China and their mentorship significantly
inspired Utzon to make his own journey, long before he
finally went in 1958.19 While preparing his competition
proposal in 1956 for the Sydney Opera House, Utzon
was preparing his study trip to China.20 It appears that,
before finishing his proposal, Utzon went to the Chinese
Embassy in Copenhagen to apply for a travel visa21; China
was by then subject to a communist regime and in the
midst of the Cold War. Utzon later recalled that the Chi-
nese visa officers were surprised by his application, but
they still offered a visa to him because of his enthusiasm
for studying Chinese architecture.22 However, the exact
dates of the visa application and its effective period are
still unknown.
Utzon’s winning entry for the Sydney Opera House com-
petition in 1957 may have been the key factor in realizing
his only trip to China, for three reasons. First, the outcome
of the competition made it possible for Utzon to have a
travel companion, the Norwegian architect Geir Grung,
his close friend, who bet his travel cost to accompany
Utzon on the successful outcome of the Sydney Opera
House competition.23 Second, it appears that, after his
first visit to Australia in 1957, on his trip back to Denmark,
Utzon traveled to Japan and met Else Glahn. Utzon’s days
in Japan and his encounter with Glahn confirmed his
resolve to travel to China at the end of his second trip
to Australia, in which ‘China was one more stop next to
Japan’.24 Third, the job security, as well as the prize money
of the competition (5,000 pounds) and design fee (10,000
pounds) for the Sydney Opera House paid by the NSW gov-
ernment in early 1958 may have given Utzon sufficient
time and money to travel and stay in China for almost two
months.25
Utzon’s Travel Itinerary
In March 1958, Utzon arrived in Sydney for his second
visit and presented his design proposal, the Sydney
National Opera House (Red Book). This book included
details formulated according to a revised building pro-
gram to the state government of New South Wales, Aus-
tralia. Later, during April and May 1958, on his way back
to Denmark, Utzon went to China, entering via Hong
Kong.
Apparently, when Utzon arrived at the border of China
with his now expired visa, he strategically lied to the
Chinese officials that ‘he was the architect of the Sydney
Opera House and personally invited by Mao’.26 He then
successfully entered China with a new visa and flew to
Beijing. However, as Utzon’s family recalled, the Chinese
government had already decided to send a local tour
guide to ‘guard’ Utzon within limited tourist locations,
so Utzon rebelled and refused to leave the airplane in
Beijing.27 In the end, it seems that the local authorities
let Utzon organize his own itinerary in China without the
former restrictions.
According to an interview with Utzon’s family and with
the wife of Geir Grung, the first ‘mission’ for Utzon in
Beijing was to rescue Geir Grung from a Chinese prison.
Chiu: China Receives Utzon
Grung had gone to China separately by train to Mongolia
through Russia and then by airplane to China, planning
to meet Utzon in Beijing. However, at the Beijing ­airport
Chinese government officials found him hiding in a
cargo plane trying to enter China, and misidentified him
as a ‘spy’. Fortunately, after a few weeks of being in jail,
Grung was rescued by the Norwegian Embassy and Utzon.
Finally, according to the surviving 16 mm films taken by
Utzon, the two architects could begin their tour of China
in Beijing, where they enjoyed the famous dish of Peking
duck, and rode in a jinriksha, a two-wheeled carriage
pulled along by a person (Fig. 3).
According to Utzon and Grung’s photographs, negatives
and slides, in Beijing, they visited traditional city streets,
the gate towers of the city walls, the Palace Museum (the
Purple Forbidden City located in the centre of Beijing),
the former Imperial Gardens located to the northwest
of the Forbidden City (now, Beihai Park), the Altar of
Heaven (now, Tiantan Park), the Summer Palace and many
old courtyard houses, temples and pavilions, including
Luzu Temple, Bai Ta (the White Pagoda) and Miaoying
Monastery. In the suburbs of Beijing, they visited Biyun
Monastery, in the Western Hills, and the Great Wall.
A few days before the first of May, the International
Workers’ Day, Utzon and Grung visited Tiananmen Square
Figure 3: Jørn Utzon and Gier Grung enjoy Peking duck and a jinriksha ride in Beijing. Stills from Jørn Utzon’s 16 mm
film. From The Utzon Archives, Aalborg University Library.
Art. 12, page 5 of 25
and the Palace Museum inside the Purple Forbidden City.
They visited the Gate of Heavenly Peace in front of the
Square and helped the workers stabilize the swinging red
lanterns for the May Day Parade with their sketches of
additional supports for lanterns.28 According to Utzon’s 16
mm film, on the day of the May Day Parade in Tiananmen
Square, they were invited to sit in the VIP seats, where the
communist government was extravagantly celebrating
with the masses. Utzon recorded the parade and its prepa-
ration over a half hour just before he finished his film.
Utzon and Grung met Professor Liang Sicheng in Beijing
during a conference, and Liang proposed that ‘mass, fast,
inexpensive, beautiful and good’ were the five principles
of modern Chinese architecture (Grung 1959: 29–40).
After the conference, with Liang’s help, they acquired
three copies of the 1925 edition of Yingzao fashi (Fig. 4),
and each cost them one hundred RMB (equivalent to four-
teen euros today). Two were for Utzon, and the other was
for Grung. Before they left Beijing, they travelled north
and reached the Gobi Desert border, but were refused per-
mission to enter for ‘safety’ reasons.
Then they went south to Henan province, where they
visited Songyue Monastery in Dengfeng, Songshan
(Mount Song). They continued west to Shanxi province
and then visited Datong City and the Yungang Grottoes.
Art. 12, page 6 of 25
Figure 4: Jørn Utzon’s 1925 edition of Yingzao fashi, bought in Beijing in 1958. The Utzon Archives, Aalborg University
Library.
In Datong, they visited the south city wall and gate,
Shanhua Monastery, Huayan Monastery, the Screen of
Nine Dragons and the drum tower. On their way to the
Yungang Grottoes, they visited the Guanyin Hall and its
Screen of Three Dragons.
The Yungang Grottoes served as inspiration for Utzon’s
creation of the Silkeborg Museum for the Danish artist
Chiu: China Receives Utzon
Asger Jørn (1914–73) in the 1960s (Fig. 5). In his article
of 1964, ‘Silkeborg kunstmuseum’ in Arkitektur, Utzon
commented,
A building of several stories above the ground
would be like a bull in a China shop, and the
respect for the existing calm wing of the museum
Chiu: China Receives Utzon
Figure 5: Left: The Yungang Grottoes in Shanxi province, from a slide taken by Utzon in 1958. Right: Utzon’s early
design proposal for the Silkeborg Museum for Danish artist Asger Jørn (1914–73) in the 1960s. From The Utzon
Archives, Aalborg University Library.
calls for a solution that will not dominate the sur-
roundings on account of its sizes.
The inspiration for the design of the museum
comes from many different experiences — including
my visit to the caves in Tatung [Datong], west of
Peking, where hundreds of Buddha sculptures and
other figures are carved in caves in the rocks by
the bank of a river. These sculptures appear in all
shapes in contrast to or in harmony with the sur-
rounding space. The caves are all of varying sizes
and shapes and with varying illumination. The
old Chinese sculptors have experimented with all
possibilities, and the most fantastic thing is a cave
that is almost filled with a Buddha figure with a
c. 7-metre-high face. These platforms linked by
ladders give the visitor the possibility of walking
around and coming to close quarters with this
gigantic figure. (Utzon 1964: 1)
Later, they visited Xi’an, the capital city of ancient China.
In Xi’an, they visited Cien Monastery and the Wild Goose
Pagoda. They further entered the center of China and vis-
ited Chongqing and Chengdu in Sichuan province. They
took a cruise on the Yangtze River to Nanjing. In Nanjing,
they met professors Yang Tingbao 楊廷寶and Tong Jun 童
寯.29 As a result of this visit, Yang visited Utzon in Helle-
bæk in 1959.30
Before leaving Nanjing, they visited the nearby Buddhist
monasteries so much admired by Johannes Prip-Møller,31
and Chinese gardens in Suzhou and Hangzhou, introduced
by Chinese Houses and Gardens (1940).32 Later, they visited
Guangzhou and other places in southern China, before
going back to Hong Kong. When Utzon and Grung arrived
at the border, Utzon’s visa, granted when he entered
China, had expired. This was not the only problem they
faced. The Chinese government officially did not allow any
private documentation to be exported without reviewing
it, such as their 16 mm film and photographic negatives.
Art. 12, page 7 of 25
So Utzon apologized with two handwritten penitent let-
ters: one for the official process, the other as a ‘souvenir’
for one particular official due to Utzon’s position with the
Sydney Opera House.33 Moreover, Utzon strategically and
‘patiently’ took a half hour to explain one image to the
border officers and pretended he would like to explain all
of them in this way. Finally, after a few more photos, the
Chinese customs officials allowed them to take everything
out without more inspection. After leaving China, Grung
went to Japan and continued his study trip while Utzon
returned to Denmark.
During their trip to China, Utzon and Grung intention-
ally went to the middle and western territories of China
to visit its historical and cultural heritage, rather than
the southern and eastern regions, which had much more
modern development (Fig. 6). This also suggests that
before Utzon’s trip to China, he already had a considerable
knowledge of China and its architectural culture. To this
point, Sirén’s The History of Early Chinese Art: Architecture
can be seen as the foundation for Utzon’s planning his trip
to China. Utzon visited most of the sites and monuments
that Sirén had visited almost thirty years earlier. Utzon’s
meetings with several important scholars both in Beijing
and Nanjing also suggest that he had connections within
modern Chinese society. Unfortunately, no documents or
records have been found in China to date.34
The Yingzao fashi and Chinese Buddhist
Monasteries
On Utzon’s return to Denmark, a big ‘coffin-like’ package
arrived at Hellebæk.35 This package was sent by Utzon
from China and contained his various ‘souvenirs’. Among
many inexpensive traditional crafts, it included the three
sets of the Yingzao fashi. The two yellow-covered, colour
editions of 1925 were for himself and his eldest son,
Jan, who had decided to become an architect. The small,
plain, black-and-white 1953 version bought in Hong Kong
was sent to Professor H. Ingham Ashworth in Sydney in
Art. 12, page 8 of 25
Figure 6: Geir Grung’s slide of a map of China showing the planned route for his trip. From the collection of Dagny
Kjøde.
June of 1958 as a personal gift. In his letter to Ashworth,
Utzon wrote of his trip to China and the acquisition of the
Yingzao fashi:
It was a great experience to me to see the old archi-
tecture of China, especially in Peking, and it gave
me a valuable experience to study the innumerable
beautiful staircases and the variation of roof con-
structions (floating roofs).
I am enclosing a reprint of the 900 year old build-
ing ‘code’ or system and standardization according
to which every official building such as temples
and castles has been built in the last 900 years.36
During the design process of the Sydney Opera House,
Utzon often took the Yingzao fashi from his own house in
Sydney to the office. He frequently looked at the illustra-
tions to get inspiration for his design and showed it to his
staff to clarify his ideas.37 This suggests that the double-
spiral patterns for decorative ceilings illustrated in Utzon’s
Yingzao fashi were the inspiration for the geometric princi-
ple of the Sydney Opera House’s roof (Fig. 7). This illustra-
tion in the Yingzao fashi presented a transformed tectonic
latticework of a decorative ceiling representing a stereo-
tomic dome drawn in a two-dimensional format. Within
a square outline, the ‘dome’ was graphically composed by
Chiu: China Receives Utzon
members of identical curvature in contrary directions, akin
to a modern Schwedler dome. This geometric composition
directly recalls Utzon’s iconic sketch, reproduced on the
back cover of his Sydney Opera House (Yellow Book) (1962),
published to indicate the geometric principle of his Opera
House roof forms after nearly four years of study.
The illustration of the decorative ceiling in his edition
of the Yingzao fashi shows how a spherical complex can
be divided into variable fan shaped segments, which can
then be further divided into identical, curved and rib-
like portions. Moreover, each ‘rib’ can be divided into a
series of small sequential grids. Every grid on the same
latitude is identical, and every grid on a different latitude
shares the same height. This reveals a standardization
and modularization of different groups of units in the
whole composition. This may well have contributed to
Utzon’s ideas of dividing the whole roof structure into a
series of representative elements, seen as the geometric
principle of roof vault, ribs and arched elements of the
Sydney Opera House (Fig. 8). The standardization and
modularization of building elements in the Yingzao fashi
were further emphasized by the process of stacking and
adding similar bracketing units into varied bracket sets, as
documented by the Yingzao fashi. Arguably, Utzon’s idea
of using a series of arched pre-cast concrete units to form
the vault roofs of the Sydney Opera House (Fig. 9), as well
Chiu: China Receives Utzon
Figure 7: Left: The illustration showing the patterns of small-scale carpentry — a decorative ceiling — in Utzon’s Ying-
zao fashi. Right (top to bottom): The front and back covers of Utzon’s Sydney Opera House (Yellow Book) showing the
geometric principle of Utzon’s Opera House roof and his studies.
as using a series of plywood-box beams for constructing
the acoustic ceilings of the two Main Halls (Fig. 10), could
have been inspired by the architectonic composition of
the bracket set. Finally, the illustrations of decorative
coating styles — yellow, red and white — on two bracket
sets in Utzon’s colour-printed Yingzao fashi were carefully
studied for his colour scheme of the acoustic ceilings and
walls in the Major Hall of his Opera House (Fig. 11). In his
colour scheme for the Minor Hall, Utzon proposed to use
three colours, silver, blue and black within a similar inter-
play of formulation as the Major Hall. Utzon’s conform-
ing and contrasting colour schemes between two Main
Halls recalls the similar juxtaposition between bracket
sets and inter-bracket-set boards that were mainly painted
or coated white, blue and deep blue or black in Utzon’s
Yingzao fashi (Fig. 12). The visual effect of the proposed
colour composition for the Minor Hall intentionally con-
trasted with the Major Hall, as Utzon explained:
The theater darker and warm, the concert hall more
cold and light plywood […]. The Major Hall was to
be used for Grand Opera and concerts with an opti-
mistic, light colour scheme […]. The Minor Hall was
programmed primarily for theatrical productions,
which require a relatively dark or subdued colour
scheme for the auditorium. (Utzon 2002: 80)
Besides the roof forms of Utzon’s Sydney Opera House,
his later northern glass walls of the two Main Halls of
Art. 12, page 9 of 25
much simplified composition may represent Chinese roof
frames built with standardized and modularized elements
(Fig. 13). Indeed, the cross-sections of buildings in Utzon’s
Yingzao fashi presented standardized joints between
varying purlins and rafters, which were constructed each
of fragments to compose the whole curvature of a single
roof frame. These standardized joints provided the flex-
ibility to allow for the differing inclination of rafters. In
Utzon’s proposal for the glass walls of the Opera House,
each of the mullions with their outward, concave curves
separately recall the different roof curvatures shown in
the Yingzao fashi. When the segments of Utzon’s mul-
lions are lower, its inclination is more horizontal; when
higher, its inclination is more vertical. Symbolically, Utzon
superimposed many systematically arranged Yingzao fashi
roof outlines into one glass wall. To Utzon, the composi-
tion of variable suspended mullions into one glass wall
suggested a solution and flexibility between the spherical
roof geometry and the rectangular pavement configura-
tion of the Opera House (Utzon 1965: 48–65). Utzon’s
interplay between these two geometries directly recalls
the Chinese roof frame, where the curved roof shape is
above and the rectangular stepped-beam system is below.
The Yingzao fashi may have served not only as an aesthetic
inspiration for or confirmation of Utzon’s Opera House
design but also as his design solution for the varied tasks
during design process.
Utzon’s ‘souvenirs’ from China also included two cop-
ies of Johannes Prip-Møller’s Chinese Buddhist Monasteries
Art. 12, page 10 of 25 Chiu: China Receives Utzon

Figure 8: Photographs showing the formation of the geometric principle connecting roof vault, ribs and arched
­elements of the Sydney Opera House. From Utzon (1965: 58).

(1937), bought in Hong Kong. One was for himself, the
other was for his father, Aage Utzon.38 Utzon’s own copy
contains some of Utzon’s notes and conceptual sketches
for Bagsværd Church (1968–76) (Fig. 14). These notations
suggest that the picturesque site of Ch’i Yuan Ssu 祇園寺
(Zhiyuan Monastery) would recall the setting of Utzon’s
Bagsværd Church: both buildings rise behind a water
pond at the main entrance (Fig. 15). It appears that Utzon
could have been inspired by the principle of Chinese geo-
mancy, documented in Prip-Møller’s book, to shape the
Chiu: China Receives Utzon Art. 12, page 11 of 25

Figure 9: Top: The varied compositions of bracketing sets (the Qing Dynasty revision) below the eaves and platforms in
Utzon’s Yingzao fashi. Bottom: ‘Shells — Minor Hall inside elevation (schematical, 1962)’, showing Utzon’s shell-vault
structure constructed by the precast concrete units. Drawing from The Utzon Archives, Aalborg University Library.

Figure 10: Left: The architectonic composition of the bracket set from Utzon’s Yingzao fashi. Right: Utzon’s wooden
models showing his proposed plywood-box beams for constructing the acoustic ceiling of the Minor Hall. Drawing
from The Utzon Archives, Aalborg University Library.
Art. 12, page 12 of 25 Chiu: China Receives Utzon

Figure 11: Left: The illustration showing a decorative coating style — yellow, red and white — on two bracketing sets in
Utzon’s Yingzao fashi. Right: Utzon’s colour scheme for the acoustic ceiling and wall in the Major Hall of the Opera
House. Drawing from The Utzon Archives, Aalborg University Library.

Figure 12: Left: The illustration showing a decorative coating style — green, blue and white — on two inter-bracket-set
boards in Utzon’s Yingzao fashi. Right: Utzon’s study of the colour scheme for the interior of Minor Hall in his Sydney
Opera House. Drawing from The Utzon Archives, Aalborg University Library.

Figure 13: Left: The curvature of Chinese roof frames, from Utzon’s Yingzao fashi. Right: ‘Glass walls Major Hall North’
(1965) of the Sydney Opera House, showing Utzon’s later developed geometric principle for the northern glass walls
of the two Main Halls. Drawing from The Utzon Archives, Aalborg University Library.
Chiu: China Receives Utzon
site of his church with a more scenic and religious setting,
as well as to emphasize the monumentality of his church
building. To this point, Utzon further planted the birch
trees around the church to reinforce its isolation from its
urban surrounding, and thus its sacredness, resonating
the mystic phenomenon of Buddhist monasteries pre-
sented by Prip-Møller’s photographs.
Besides the site analogy, the basic layout of Utzon’s
church was also similar to Prip-Møller’s drawing of Wen Shu
Yuan (Wenshu Monastery) in Chengdu, Sichuan province,
which Utzon and Grung visited during their trip (Fig. 16)
(Fromonot 1997: 32). The layout of Wen Shu Yuan echoes
the volume Utzon proposed for his walled building and its
very limited intervention in the surroundings. The inter-
connection between main halls and courts on the central
axis of Wen Shu Yuan, surrounded by the walls, passages
and secondary buildings, seems to inspire Utzon’s simi-
lar arrangement for Bagsværd Church. In addition to the
similar spatial composition, the corridor wall directly in
front of Bagsværd Church’s main entrance could be inter-
preted as his ‘spirit wall,’ much like the protection against
evil spirits of a typical Buddhist monastery setting, seen
also in Wen Shu Yuan (Prip-Møller 1937: 7). Utzon’s pro-
posed hip glass roof and skylight of the church’s corridors
may be the result of his study of Prip-Møller’s photograph
Figure 14: Utzon’s copy of Chinese Buddhist Monasteries contains many notes and sketches, including sketches for
Bagsværd Church. Photo by the author.
Art. 12, page 13 of 25
on ‘Corridor between Abbot’s Quarters and Ko Ching’
(Fig. 17) (Prip-Møller 1937: 134). Although it is difficult
to list all Utzon’s analogies with Chinese Buddhist set-
tings documented in Chinese Buddhist Monasteries, it is
clear that Utzon’s Bagsværd Church was his synthesis of
Buddhist building culture, which he had closely studied
either on site or through Prip-Møller’s work.
Yangxin Dian and the Three Large Halls
While Utzon had collected photographs and films from
his trip to China, he never published any documentation
about it during his lifetime. In contrast, in 1959, Grung
wrote about his trip to China in Byggekunst, and his pho-
tograph of the Yungang Grottoes became the cover of this
issue (Grung 1959). But Grung failed to mention his travel
companion in this article. It may be that, with Utzon’s
position as the architect of the Sydney Opera House,
Grung was being cautious, sensing the ‘dangerous’ aspect,
in the Western capitalist world during the Cold War, of
reports on travel in Red China.39
Utzon’s 16 mm films were significant, therefore, not only
for proving his ‘untold’ interest in China during the Cold
War but also because they reveal the exact contents and
details of his perception of Chinese architecture. Within
these films — almost five hours of coverage — are many
Art. 12, page 14 of 25 Chiu: China Receives Utzon

Figure 15: Left: ‘Anhui [Province]. Chiu Hua Shan [Mount Jiuhua]. Ch’i Yuan Ssu [Zhiyuan Monastery]. Main Gate with
Pa Tzu Ch’iang [Patzu River]’, from the chapter ‘The Typical Buddhist Monastery Layout of Today: — Central Axis’, in
Utzon’s copy of Prip-Møller’s Chinese Buddhist Monasteries (1937: 5). Right: Utzon’s Bagsværd Church. Photo ­courtesy
The Utzon Archives, Aalborg University Library.

Figure 16: Left: Plan of Wen Shu Monastery, as drawn by Prip-Møller in Chinese Buddhist Monasteries (1937: 31).
Right: The basic layout of Utzon’s Bagsværd Church. From The Utzon Archives, Aalborg University Library.
Chiu: China Receives Utzon
Figure 17: Left: Prip-Møller’s photograph of the interior of Tung Yen Ssu in Chinese Buddhist Monasteries (1937: 134).
Right: The side corridor of Utzon’s Bagsværd Church. Photo by the author.
small sections where Utzon focused on the built forms of
monuments in Imperial Beijing, in contrast to other parts
where he recorded the people and events in China. Among
these monuments, the former Emperor’s dwelling palace,
Yangxin Dian [Hall for Mental Cultivation] (Fig. 18) and
the Three Large Halls (Fig. 19), which possessed the high-
est status of all structures in feudal China, were Utzon’s key
subjects of study.
Utzon appears to have studied the triadic setting of
Yangxin Dian and its forecourt when he created a simi-
lar layout for his second house in Majorca, Can Feliz
(1994) (Fig. 20). In both cases, the buildings were built
on a podium, and their middle pavilions were finished
with an expanded veranda to create a transitional space
between indoor and the forecourt. The distinct diago-
nal passage connecting the entrance at the northeast
corner and the forecourt of Can Feliz could have been
the result of Utzon’s studying the temple master plan
of Erwang temple [Temple of Two Kings] and its circula-
tion (Fig. 21) during his 1958 trip, a Taoist temple in
the sacred site of Mount Qingcheng in Sichuan Province,
facing Dujiangyan Dam.40 Certainly, Utzon’s Can Feliz
was his synthesis of Chinese Confucian and Taoist built
forms; Erwang temple was initially introduced in Ernst
Boerschmann’s (1873–1949) Baukunst und Landschaft in
China (1923) [Architecture and Landscape in China] and
Chinesische Architektur [Chinese Architecture] (1925), and
Art. 12, page 15 of 25
later documented in Chang Chaokang and Werner Blaser’s
China: Tao in Architecture (1987).41 The above three mono-
graphs served as Utzon’s reference books for design, and
survive in his family collection.42
The hierarchical and south-facing roof/earthwork
­juxtaposition of Three Large Halls could have been one of
the precedents for Utzon’s Sydney Opera House (Fig. 22),
according to the architect’s conceptual sketches for the
glass wall mullions for his Opera House (Fig. 23). Utzon’s
sketches show composite sections and elevations of Beijing’s
Three Large Halls, where he is clearly studying their external
form, especially the projecting eaves of their roof volumes.
Thus, Utzon’s combination of shell vaults and multifaceted
plywood mullions for the Opera House can be seen as his
transformation of the relationship he observed between the
roof volumes and projecting eaves of Beijing’s Three Large
Halls. Moreover, Utzon’s restaurant on the podium of his
Opera House appears to have been a reflection of the Hall
of Central Harmony 中和殿 [the middle hall], while the two
main halls separately recall the Hall of Supreme Harmony 太
和殿 [the front hall] and the Hall of Preserving Harmony 保
和殿 [the back hall].
The Hall of Supreme Harmony could also be the inspira-
tion behind Utzon’s Melli Bank (1959–60) (Fig. 24). The
plan of this bank may be mirroring the ‘half’ composition
of this hall and its specific walls on a raised podium. The
hall’s ‘full’ plan could have further served as the geometric
Art. 12, page 16 of 25 Chiu: China Receives Utzon

Figure 18: Stills from Utzon’s film showing Yangxin Dian [Hall for Mental Cultivation], within the Purple Forbidden
City of Beijing. Jørn Utzon’s 16 mm film, from The Utzon Archives, Aalborg University Library.

Figure 19: Stills from Utzon’s film showing the Three Large Halls, located in the centre of the Purple Forbidden City of
Beijing. Jørn Utzon’s 16 mm film, The Utzon Archives, Aalborg University Library.
Chiu: China Receives Utzon Art. 12, page 17 of 25

Figure 20: Can Feliz (1994) is built on a podium, its middle pavilion finished with an expanded veranda to create a tran-
sitional space between the indoors and the forecourt. Photo courtesy The Utzon Archives, Aalborg University Library.

Figure 21: The basic layout of Erwang temple, a Taoist shine. Kim Utzon suggests it was the inspiration for Utzon’s
creation of Can Feliz. From Chang and Blaser (1987: 144).
Art. 12, page 18 of 25 Chiu: China Receives Utzon

Figure 22: Left: ‘Plan of “San Ta Tien (Sandadian),” the Three Great Halls, and the surrounding buildings. Drawing by
Albin Stark’. From Sirén (1926: plate 5). Right: Site plan of the competition proposal for the Sydney Opera House,
1956. From State Records NSW.

Figure 23: Utzon’s conceptual sketches of the Sydney Opera House. Drawings of the Hall of Supreme Harmony; the
front hall of the Three Large Halls is marked with a red square. Jørn Utzon, State Library of New South Wales, PXD
492 / 2 - 175 and 179.

principle for the ground floor plan: its staircase and semi-
enclosed aisle appear to echo the location of the emper-
or’s throne and the front portico of the Hall of Supreme
Harmony.
Utzon’s study of the Hall of Supreme Harmony may
also be one of the reasons for his conceptual sketch of
‘Chinese houses and temples’ published in his ‘Platforms
and Plateaus’ manifesto of 1962 (Utzon 1962: 116). In this
sketch, Utzon indicates significant characters of a classi-
cal Chinese building: the double projecting eaves of a hip
or garble roof with supporting bracketing substructure
‘floating’ above a multi-tier podium (Fig. 25). All these
features can be seen in the most monumental buildings in
the Forbidden City, where these characteristics symbolized
the highest status of official building in feudal China. That
Utzon paid attention to these built forms further reflects
Utzon’s pursuit of the expressivity of Imperial monu-
ments in China. The major reason for such attention, and
for studying the monumentality of Chinese architecture,
may have been that he was in charge of the Sydney Opera
House at the time of his trip, and it would have been in
the forefront of his mind.
Chiu: China Receives Utzon Art. 12, page 19 of 25

Figure 24: Left: ‘Plan of T’ai Ho Tien (Taihedian) [the Hall of Supreme Harmony]’. From Sirén (1926: plate 7). Right:
Utzon’s proposal for the Melli Bank, Teheran, Iran (1959–60). From The Utzon Archives, Aalborg University Library.

Figure 25: Left: Utzon’s conceptual sketch of traditional, monumental Chinese architecture with fixed podium and
floating roof. From Utzon (1962: 116). Right: Taihedian [the Supreme Harmony Hall] and the dragon terrace from the
south-west’. From Sirén (1926: plate 34).

Spatial Composition of Chinese architecture
What Utzon’s 16 mm films could not clearly capture was
the layout of the former Imperial City of Beijing and the
Summer Palace, both of which Utzon experienced during
his trip.43 These sites include the Purple Forbidden City,
Beihai Park, the Altar of Heaven and so on. Utzon’s experi-
ences of Imperial Beijing and its surroundings may have
played an important role in his design proposal for Kuwait
National Assembly design (1972–84).
In Utzon’s early design, the Assembly was conceived as
an angular walled city with numerous small courtyards
and a central ‘boulevard’ (Fig. 26), a layout that reflects
the ­layout, courts and central axis of the Purple Forbidden
City. At the end of Utzon’s central ‘boulevard’ are three
Art. 12, page 20 of 25
Figure 26: Left: ‘Plan of the Purple Forbidden City, Mei Shan and parts of the Sea Palaces, according to a map ­published
by the College of Engineering of the Tokyo Imperial University’. From Sirén (1926: plate 1). Right: Utzon’s early
­proposal for the Kuwait National Assembly (1972–84). From The Utzon Archives, Aalborg University Library.
curved projecting roof forms that recall the facade of the
main palaces in Imperial Beijing. These three roofs further
symbolically formed another court in this city-like complex.
The organic layout of the proposed houses next to Utzon’s
Assembly, an expanded concept of the Fredensborg Houses
(1959–63), could be also his reflection on the shape of the
former Imperial gardens located at the West of the Imperial
City of Beijing (Fig. 27). Moreover, like Imperial Beijing
where thousands of palaces and shrines were built strictly
according to one proportional and scale system of all build-
ing elements, Utzon’s proposed 4000 precast concrete
units and a series of representative courtyards at Kuwait
presented a similar uniformity of built forms and spaces.
This could be confirmed by Utzon’s study of Else Glahn’s
modern interpretation of the bracket sets documented in
the Yingzao fashi.44 Indeed, to Utzon, his Kuwait project
may be not only his representation of the setting of the
Chinese capital but also his re-enactment of its feudal sys-
tem of architectural practices.
In addition to studying Chinese city complexes, as
revealed in the surviving documents, Utzon studied
numerous building complexes of Chinese monuments,
such as the court of Three Large Halls, Leshou Tang,
Shanhua Monastery and so on (Fig. 28). Utzon’s experi-
ences of these building complexes could be the reason
that he created the several seminal works of the ‘Platforms
and Plateaus’ theme, with similar principles of spatial com-
position. For example, Utzon’s proposals for the Opera
House in Madrid (1962), the Zurich Theater (1964–70)
and the Wolfsburg Theatre (1965) all have a narrow front
and a substantial depth, emphasized by enveloping walls
above an urban-scale podium (Fig. 29). Utzon’s theatre
layouts also reveal a strong central axis and passage within
a series of hierarchical roof and earthwork juxtapositions.
This axis/passage connected the site, the main auditorium
Chiu: China Receives Utzon
and front and back courts and represented a sequential
movement of visitors, as well as a transition of spaces from
the public domains to private areas. In the two lateral sides
of Utzon’s central axis/passage were secondary rooms,
which reinforce his proposed spatial hierarchy and serve
the main halls and central courts. Although none of these
proposals was realized, Utzon’s architectural maturity and
his learning from Chinese building culture, as seen in his
‘Platforms and Plateaus’ theme, served as a foundation for
organizing the spaces and built forms of Bagsværd Church
as a typical Chinese monument (Fig. 16).
After Utzon’s 1958 Trip
After Utzon’s forced resignation from his Sydney Opera
House position, he received a professorship with the
Department of Architecture at the University of Hawaii.
In 1973, Utzon made plans to bring his studio students to
China for a study trip:
I [Utzon] consider after my own visits to China and
my knowledge of Chinese architecture, that it is of
as basic value to go to China and study for an archi-
tect, as it is to go to Japan and the two architectural
cultures are as different as night and day.45
Utzon’s apparent disregard for socio-political censorship
during the Cold War and his enthusiasm for Chinese
building culture created ‘rumors’ in his department.
This raised the concerns of its chair, Bruce Ethering-
ton.46 However, Utzon’s study trip with his students was
postponed due to the termination of his professorship
that same year because of ’economic problems at the
university’.47
Twenty years after Utzon trip to China, in 1978, Grung
received a copy of Roland Rainer’s Die Welt als Garten—China
Chiu: China Receives Utzon Art. 12, page 21 of 25

Figure 27: Left: ‘Plan of the Imperial City of Peking. City of Peking. From the map prepared by the Topographical
­Section of the German Military Expedition Corps in Peking 1900–01’. From Sirén (1926: plate 2). Right: Utzon’s early
proposal for the Kuwait National Assembly (1972–84). From The Utzon Archives, Aalborg University Library.

Figure 28: Plan of San Ta Tien, the three great ceremonial halls of the Forbidden City.’ From Sirén (1929: 15).
Art. 12, page 22 of 25
Figure 29: Left to Right: Utzon’s proposals for the Opera House in Madrid (1962), Zurich Theater (1964–70) and
­Wolfsburg Theatre (1965). The layouts show narrow buildings that extend far back, surrounded by walls, and mounted
on an urban-scale podium. From The Utzon Archives, Aalborg University Library.
(1976) from Utzon, with his ‘down under’ signature and
‘Chinese’ script. Then, two years later, in 1980, Grung visited
Utzon at Can Lis, Utzon’s own house located on the top of
a cliff on Majorca’s south coast. In 1989, Grung died from a
stroke in Oslo. In the late 1990s, Utzon converted his 16 mm
films of their trip to China into VHS format and sent one
copy to Grung’s second wife, Dagny Kjøde, to memorialize
his lifetime friendship with Grung.
Although China gradually opened to the West, especially
after the late 1970s, Utzon never visited China again, despite
his lifetime interest in its architectural culture. However,
two of Utzon’s close friends, the architectural historians
Tobias Faber and Else Glahn, frequently visited China after
the Cultural Revolution (1966–76) and published many
monographs and articles on that country, both in Danish
and English, which Utzon knew. Although ‘China was the
ultimate travel destination both for Grung and Utzon at
that time’,48 the territory of communist China was no longer
as exotic and unreachable as it had been prior to the late
1970s. Utzon had had his own experience of exotic and mys-
terious China earlier, and there was no desire for Utzon to
visit the China of ‘others’ in his later life.
Conclusion
Previous scholarship on Utzon, such as Peter Myers’ ’Une
histoire inachevée’ (1993) in L’Architecture d’aujourd’hui,
Françoise Fromonot’s 1998 Jørn Utzon, Architect of the
Sydney Opera House and Richard Weston’s 2002 Utzon:
Inspiration, Vision and Architecture, has noted the impor-
tance of Utzon’s worldwide study trips for his architectural
Chiu: China Receives Utzon
career. Utzon, like many of his Nordic colleagues, such
as Arne Korsmo (1900–68), Sverre Fehn (1924–2009),
Geir Grung (1926–89) and Christian Norberg-Schulz
(1926–2000), sought inspiration for his architectural
creation from many non-European building cultures.
However, none of the above-mentioned scholarly work
has provided any detailed account of Utzon’s study trips,
nor of their impact on the architect’s architectural crea-
tion. This article, as the first of this kind, reconstructs
Utzon’s trip to China and examines Utzon’s early percep-
tions of Chinese architecture, both before and during this
pivotal adventure.
Indeed, Utzon’s early perception of China, especially
through studying the work of Aksel Einar Utzon-Frank, Kay
Fisker, Steen Eiler Rasmussen, Johannes Prip-Møller and
Osvald Sirén, significantly nurtured his lifetime obsession
with Chinese building culture. The travels of these people
to China may have played an important role in stimulating
Utzon’s decision to go on a study trip to China himself in
1958, given his apparent ignorance of the political tension
between the East and West during the Cold War. His travel
itinerary demonstrated a certain amount of pre-existing
knowledge of Chinese architecture, as did his connection
with leading architects and scholars in China. This seems to
reconfirm the comparison Utzon makes, in his drawings, of
the Three Large Halls at the Forbidden City of Beijing with
his Sydney Opera House. The Yingzao fashi acquired dur-
ing the trip later allowed Utzon to closely study the build-
ing practices of Imperial carpentry. This may have inspired
him to initiate a series of systems of building elements and
Chiu: China Receives Utzon
colour codes for designing his Opera House. Another mono-
graph Utzon acquired, Chinese Buddhist Monasteries, may
have provided Utzon the case study for his Bagsværd Church
project. The church and his theatre designs proposed in
the 1960s reveal his learning from the spatial composition
of Chinese architecture. Can Feliz, Utzon’s second house in
Majorca, arguably presents analogies of site, built form and
spatial composition with Chinese architecture. The design
of Utzon’s house concludes the architect’s lifetime interest
in Chinese building culture, to which his 1958 trip to China
significantly contributed. The role of China in Utzon’s career
further raises the question of the impact of other building
cultures, such as Japan, South America, India and Middle
East, all of which Utzon studied through his worldwide trav-
els. More research is needed to provide a better understand-
ing of the role of Utzon’s study trips in the formation of his
architectural creations.
Notes
1
Jan Utzon interview, Sydney, 2008.
2
Many scholars have already alluded, albeit briefly, to
Utzon’s 1958 study trip to China, but without realising
its crucial importance. See F Fromonot, Jørn Utzon, The
Sydney Opera House (Corte Madera, California: Gingko
Press, 1998); R Weston, Utzon: Inspiration, Vision,
Architecture (Hellerup: Edition Bløndal, 2002); and J J
Ferrer Forés, Jørn Utzon. Obras y Proyectos. Works and
Projects (Spain: GG, 2006).
3
Today, the architectural collection of Utzon has been
divided into two separate parts. The first part is The
Utzon Archives at Aalborg, Denmark, and the second
part is at Jan Utzon’s warehouse at Saunte, Denmark.
The author surveyed the above two collections, as well
as the architectural collection of Geir Grung, located
at the house of Dagny Kjøde, wife of the architect, in
Oslo.
4
‘Many Kinds of Things’ is the translated title of the
1942 portfolio for Utzon-Frank’s collection, ‘Mange
slags Ting’.
5
The Yingzao fashi is a technical treatise on architec-
ture and craftsmanship written by the Chinese author
Li Jie (李誡; 1065–1110), in the mid Song Dynasty
(960–1279 AD).
6
Else Glahn interview, Birkerød, 2009.
7
In the DVD by Bech (2007), Utzon says, ‘My uncle Einar
Utzon Frank let me know the East, when I was young.’
8
Jan Utzon interview, Sydney, 2008.
9
Marcus had been inspired by Sirén’s Rytm och Form
och andra Fragmenter om Kinesisk och Europeisk
Målarkonst [Rhythm and Form and other Fragments of
Chinese and European Paintings] of 1917, which was
later published in English as Essentials in Art (1919).
10
Tobias Faber confirmed, during an interview in Copen-
hagen in 2009, that Utzon had read Marcus’s book.
11
Today, the model has been moved to the Danish
National Museum.
12
The names of two model makers and the name of Soci-
ety for Research in Chinese Architecture were writ-
ten in Chinese on the plaque in the front elevation of
model.
Art. 12, page 23 of 25
13
See the letter from Liang to Prip-Møller, dated 22 July
1933, Prip-Møller Archives, The National Library, Den-
mark.
14
Else Glahn interview, Birkerød, 2009.
15
Tobias Faber interview, Copenhagen, 2009.
16
The museum began as the Ethnographic Collections of
the Museum of Natural History. In 1966, the Museum
of Ethnography became a separate authority. The origi-
nal Zui ki tei burned down in 1969, and today’s model
was rebuilt and finished in 1990.
17
Tobias Faber interview, Copenhagen, 2009.
18
Ibid.
19
Ibid.
20
Interview with Jan Utzon, Sydney, 2008. This informa-
tion was also confirmed by Dagny Kjøde, wife of Geir
Grung, during an interview at Oslo, 2010.
21
Ibid.
22
Ibid.
23
Dagny Kjøde interview, Oslo, 2010.
24
Else Glahn interview, Birkerød, 2009.
25
Jan Utzon interview, Sydney, 2008.
26
Lin Utzon interview, Hellebæk, 2009.
27
Ibid.
28
Ibid.
29
As an architectural historian, Tong Jun wrote about his
understanding of Utzon and the Sydney Opera House:
‘After a long struggle, Utzon finally designed his ini-
tial scheme for the competition. However, there was
now little time for making the drawings, and Utzon
almost gave up. Unexpectedly, he won the first prize,
at the age of only 37. Then, he used the prize money
to travel, around the world and to Nanjing in China
[…].’ See Ming, T 2000 The Collective Works of Tong Jun
[童寯文集], Volume II. Beijing: China Architecture &
Building Press. pp. 129–130. Later in 1979, Tong Jun
commented on Utzon and the Opera House in his ‘The
Century of Western Modern Architectural History’: ‘[…]
In the building program of the Opera House, Utzon
was much occupied with difficulties arising from
consistently revised proposals for the construction of
the shell roofs. There is almost no other case in mod-
ern architectural history that can be compared with
Utzon’s long-term struggle with this problem. Indeed,
Utzon demonstrated both his creativity and deter-
mination with his ultimate design solution […].’ See,
Ming, T 2001 The Collective Works of Tong Jun [童寯文
集], Volume I. Beijing: China Architecture & Building
Press. 308.
30
Tobias Faber interview, Copenhagen, 2009.
31
These could include Hui Chu Ssu 慧居寺 (Huiju Mon-
astery) and Lin Ku Ssu 靈谷寺 (Lingu Monastery). The
former was studied in great details in Prip-Møller’s
Chinese Buddhist Monasteries (1937). The later was
published in Prip-Møller’s 1934 The Hall of Lin Ku Ssu,
Nanking, Artes. Monuments et Mémoires III. Copenha-
gen: P. Haase & fils.
32
Professor Tong Jun is one of the contributors to this
book which introduced several gardens in Shanghai,
Hangzhou and Suzhou.
33
Lin Utzon interview, Hellebæk, 2009.
Art. 12, page 24 of 25
34
The author met the family members and friends of
Professors Liang Sicheng, Yang Tingbao and Tong Jun,
but no of them knew Utzon, his trip to China and his
Chinese connection.
35
Jan Utzon interview, Sydney, 2008.
36
Letter from Utzon to Ashworth, dated 12 June 1958,
(Ashworth Papers, Box 1, Folder 9), National Library,
Canberra.
37
Peter Myers and Richard Leplastrier interview, New
Castle, 2009. Later, after a request from Lin, his daugh-
ter, Utzon gave her the seventh volume on decorative
painting from his yellow cover eight-volume set. Since
Utzon passed away in 2008, the Utzon family decided
to let Jan Utzon own the two sets of his father’s
­Yingzao fashi.
38
After Aage Utzon passed away in 1970, this copy was
given to Jan Utzon. Later, the copy originally owned by
Utzon himself was given to Kim Utzon.
39
Dagny Kjøde interview, Oslo, 2010.
40
Kim Utzon interview, Copenhagen, 2010.
41
Ibid.
42
Ibid.
43
Before and after his trip, Utzon studied Osvald Sirén,
Ernst Boerschmann and many others’ publications on
the layout of former Imperial City of Beijing and the
Summer Palaces.
44
Utzon’s study of Chinese bracketing units with the
modern perspective drawing made by the Chinese
student of Else Glahn, published in 2008 Jørn Utzon:
Logbook, VOL. IV Prefab, Kuwait National Assembly.
Hellerup: Edition Bløndal. 4–5 and 166–7.
45
See Jørn Utzon’s letter to Bruce Etherington, dated
October 3, 1973, in The Utzon Archives, Aalborg
­University Library.
46
See Bruce Etherington’s letter to Jørn Utzon, dated
September 21, 1973, in The Utzon Archives, Aalborg
University Library.
47
See Jørn Utzon’s letter to Bruce Etherington, dated
October 3, 1973, in The Utzon Archives, Aalborg Uni-
versity Library.
48
Dagny Kjøde interview, Oslo, 2010.
Acknowledgements
The author would like to express his deepest gratitude
to Professor Philip Goad and Peter Myers for their moral
support during his PhD study (2007–2011) at the Univer-
sity of Melbourne, which resulted in a dissertation enti-
tled ‘Utzon’s China, The Reinterpretation of Traditional
Chinese Art and Architecture in the Work of Jørn Utzon
(1918–2008)’.
Competing Interests
The author declares that they have no competing interests.
Author Biography
Dr. Chiu Chen-Yu graduated from Chung Yuan Christian
University, Taiwan, in 2002 with a Bachelor of Architec-
ture. He pursued a master’s degree in Urban Design at
Chiu: China Receives Utzon
Columbia University in New York in 2005 and received
his PhD at the Faculty of Architecture, Building and Plan-
ning, the University of Melbourne, in 2011. Since 2013, he
worked as a post-doctoral researcher at the Department
of Architecture, Aalto University. His primary research
­interest is in the mechanism of East-West intercultural
dynamics within the field of modern architecture.
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Chiu: China Receives Utzon Art. 12, page 25 of 25

How to cite this article: Chiu, C-Y 2016 China Receives Utzon: The Role of Jørn Utzon’s 1958 Study Trip to China in His
Architectural Maturity. Architectural Histories, 4(1): 12, pp. 1–25, DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5334/ah.182

Published: 29 July 2016

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